


cherry red

by pinkcerulean



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Anal Fingering, Biting, Bottom Eddie Kaspbrak, Choking, Dom/sub Undertones, First Kiss, First Time, Fisting, Fluff and Humor, Hair-pulling, Idiots in Love, Laughter During Sex, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oh wait, Online Dating, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Richie Tozier Has a Big Dick, Spanking, Top Richie Tozier, Virgin Eddie Kaspbrak, almost fucking forgot about that. wild, anyway, bickering is a love language actually, clown to clown communication, god have i gotten all the kinks????? no clue, okay that should be all of them?, sort of. they're a mess. it's fine, theyre so fucking stupid your honor, your mom jokes are also a love language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 22:34:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29375004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkcerulean/pseuds/pinkcerulean
Summary: As it stood, Eddie knew exactly what sort of person he was. He was a shitty, neurotic, repressed as all hell pretentious asshat, and he made every single decision every single day of his life based off of that knowledge. Sure, deciding to get screwed was a weird - but perhaps inevitable - lapse, but he thought he’d chosen the person to screw him quite well. Some average sort of guy on a dating app; no connection, no prospect, no chance in hell of ever having to see him again aside from weird eye contact at an H-E-B seven months after they’d had mind-blowingly average sex.But Richie fucked all that up about as thoroughly as he fucked Eddie himself. Which, as he thought about as much as he tried to avoid thinking about, wasverythoroughly.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 18
Kudos: 209





	cherry red

**Author's Note:**

> sorry to god and everyone else<3

As Eddie barreled past the third turn his shitty GPS had failed to inform him about until only after it was simply impossible to safely make the turn, he considered - for perhaps the seventeenth time in about as many minutes - that this was a bad idea.

He’d been in town for, what, six hours? Sure, he was pent up and desperate for  _ literally anything,  _ but even this seemed like drastic measures.

His shitty GPS attempted to tell him to turn onto a road that was nowhere in sight. “Oh, shut up,” Eddie said, but he didn’t turn the GPS off. He simply looked for another gas station or parking lot to turn into so that he could turn around.

This was, without a doubt, a bad idea.

He was nineteen years old, a virgin, repressed as all hell, and speeding (not literally, that would be very unsafe) into a situation that might get him killed in his roommate’s beat up 2001 Honda Accord that he’d definitely borrowed without permission. Ben probably would’ve let him use it if he’d asked, but he was conveniently absent for the night (with his girlfriend Beverly at her apartment, she’d picked him up), and Eddie hadn’t quite felt like asking for permission.

See, there’s only a certain amount of pent up energy one can hold in before making stupid, terrible decisions. Eddie had surpassed that point sometime in grade 5, and then he’d kept bottling it all up until it crash landed him into tonight: in which he downloaded a dating app thirty minutes after unpacking, matched with about ten people, latched on to the one that seemed interesting and hot enough, and proposed they meet up for the night. 

Richie (boy from dating app - 20, goofy-looking but still weirdly attractive, picture of him on a dingy stage with ‘Comedy Night’ lit up in piss-colored neon lights hung up on the moth-eaten curtains) had asked if he needed a ride, and Eddie had almost said yes, until he thought about how if Richie turned out to be a murderer, he’d have no way to escape. So he’d taken Ben’s car.

Sure, he didn’t exactly have a  _ license,  _ but he drove well enough. 

Once again, his shitty GPS failed to notify him of his correct turn.

“Motherfucking shit fuck,” Eddie muttered under his breath, gripping the steering wheel at 10 and 2. 

He should just go back to his apartment. Watch a movie and wallow about how lonely and repressed he is.

Fuck that.

Eventually, he pulled into a shitty-looking apartment complex which surprisingly had a gate code, and he stopped the car before reaching the keypad, pulling out his phone and checking the messages from Richie. Nothing about a gate code.

He sent a message asking for it, but didn’t receive an answer for two whole minutes - enough time for another car to pull in and open the gate for him. Almost immediately after, his phone dinged with the gate code.

He really should just go home.

But he entered through the gate, and he found building five, and parked (better than he expected) in a parking spot nearby, and he turned off the car, and he sat in silence for a full seven minutes. During these seven minutes, he evaluated the pros and cons of getting out of the car and attempting to find Richie’s apartment. 

Pros: he might get kissed for once in his terrible, miserable life, and Richie had seemed fine enough. Cons: he had no idea what he was doing, and he might get murdered.

He got out of the car. 

After sending a quick message to Richie to tell him he had parked and needed more direction on where to go, he looked up at the building, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Not wanting to seem strange, he walked around the building a bit, feeling awkward. The cold air bit into his cheeks, and he rubbed his nose on his jacket sleeve, trying to warm up. He looked down at his phone. No message from Richie. He looked back up at the building.

There was someone on a second floor balcony, looking down at him. Blanching, Eddie ducked his head and walked a few paces away. He glanced back at the person on the balcony, and it still seemed like they were watching him.

Creepy.

He was going to get murdered.

“Eds, that you?” the person on the balcony called, amusement clear in their voice, and Eddie whipped around to the figure, heart pounding out of his chest. The guy on the balcony - it was a guy, the voice was deep, the shoulders broad - was smoking a cigarette, the light from his apartment turning him into a shadow that Eddie couldn’t quite make out the features of. “It’s me, Richie,” the guy said.

What the fuck.

“What the fuck,” Eddie said, and the guy on the balcony - Richie - laughed. “Were you just fucking watching me?”

“How do you feel about milkshakes?” Richie asked, and Eddie blinked.

“Hold on, back up,” he said, holding his hands out. “How long have you been there watching me?”

“Long enough to see you show up, sit in your car for a weird amount of time, and wander around for a bit,” Richie replied. “How do you feel about milkshakes?”

“That’s fucking rude,” Eddie said. “I messaged you.”

“I deeply apologize,” Richie said, and although Eddie couldn’t quite see his face, he could tell that Richie was saying it with a stupid grin on his face. He could hear it. “So. How do you feel about milkshakes?”

“They’re fine, I guess,” Eddie said, crossing his arms.

“Cool,” Richie said.

There was a space of silence.

“Do you want to go get some?”

“It’s, like, 40 degrees out.”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

Eddie was already regretting this. But he was already here, and he wasn’t going anywhere until he got at least a single kiss. “A yes.”

“Fantastic, I’ll be down in a second,” Richie said, and he snubbed the cigarette on the railing, disappearing into the apartment shortly after.

Eddie blew out a breath, rocking on his heels to let off some of the anxiety curled up in his stomach.

A minute later, Richie was bounding toward him, all sharp limbs and long extremities. His hair was an absolute mess, his glasses were half an inch thick, and he had a five o’clock shadow that looked less effortless and more lazy. “Hey, Eds,” he said, and Eddie wrinkled his nose.

“Don’t fucking call me that.”

“You let me call you that before,” he said, and Eddie shook his head.

“That doesn’t count. I was too busy being freaked out by a creepy man calling out to me from a balcony at” - he checked his watch - “nine thirty-three at night.”

“Some might call that romantic,” Richie said, and Eddie scowled.

“It was fucking rude.”

“Glad to know we’re getting off on the right foot,” Richie said, and his smile was so stupid and big that Eddie couldn’t help but smile, too. “I can drive for milkshakes, if you want.”

Eddie considered this. “You’re not going to take me to an abandoned warehouse to kill me, right?” he asked. Richie laughed.

“No, no. I  _ was  _ going to take you to the alleyway behind the Del Taco, but if you prefer a warehouse-” Eddie jabbed an elbow into Richie’s ribs, and Richie laughed. “Fine, fine. No murdering from me tonight.”

“‘Tonight,’” Eddie repeated, raising his eyebrows.

“The week is still young, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie said, raising his voice and sticking his finger into the air dramatically. “Now let’s go get milkshakes.”

Eddie, as he climbed into Richie’s extremely shitty beat up powder blue pick-up truck that Richie informed him was affectionately named ‘Miz Fanny,’ thought that he might hate Richie. He thought this with a smile on his face.

“So, if you don’t mind me asking, what were you doing on a dating app?” Richie asked as they drove to an In-N-Out. 

_ To get a fucking kiss,  _ Eddie thought. “Because I was bored,” Eddie said with a shrug.

Richie nodded sagely. “I understand,” he said, a little too seriously. “Shopping for salmon polo shirts and khakis at Target can only be entertaining for so long.”

“Yeah, and finding a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt that says ‘I’m not gay but $20 is $20’ in a storm drain is so much more interesting,” Eddie snapped back, and Richie let out a startled sort of guffaw, like he hadn’t been expecting to get his own less than subpar attire critiqued.

“For your information, yes. Yes, it is,” Richie replied, smoothing down his terrible shirt with a hint of pride. “I also find really cool leaves and rocks covered in mysterious substances.  _ Way  _ better than Target popcorn.”

“I don’t eat Target popcorn.”

“Are you fucking insane?”

“Yeah,” Eddie answered immediately.

“Cool,” Richie replied.

They continued talking about nothing as the drive went on, and then they were pulling into the In-N-Out drive-through, and Eddie was explaining how terrible the bathrooms were at the one frat party he’d been to while Richie listened, body turned to him fully.

“And, you know, I turned around and saw this girl - obviously black out drunk - and she was all alone,” Eddie was saying, and Richie nodded along, hand moving toward the buttons underneath the window. “I didn’t want to just leave her there, because, you know, girl - frat party, whatever - so I went to the bathroom to grab her, like, a wet towel or something, and then I find that there’s” - Richie began vigorously pressing on one of the buttons, eyes still focused on Eddie - “absolutely no soap-  _ what  _ are you doing?”

“Hm?” RIchie asked, still stabbing his finger into the button underneath the window. Eddie gestured vaguely at the action. “Oh, well, you see  _ Miz Fanny”  _ \- he said this with an insufferable Southern accent - “hates rolling the driver’s side window down. I was hoping she would work now so I wouldn’t look like an idiot in front of you-”

“Too late.”

“-but no dice. So now when we pull up to order, I’m gonna have to open up the whole door like a jackass,” Richie continued as if he hadn’t heard Eddie’s interjection. “You know, fun story about that - I have these gorilla arms, see, matches my gorilla di-”

“Richie,” Eddie interrupted, seemingly at the exact right time. “Pull up.”

“Right-o, Eduardo. Pause on the gorilla arms and dick.” Eddie ran a hand down his face. Richie grinned, as if that was the exact response he was looking for, and moved the truck closer to the speaker. He opened up his door, ordering a large chocolate shake and a medium strawberry shake. Eddie stared at him.

When he’d closed the door again, he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, staring at the car ahead of them and humming something incomprehensible. He seemed to feel Eddie’s eyes on him, and he looked over, raising his eyebrows. “What? Oh, wait, yeah, my gorilla dick-”

“It wasn’t even funny the first time so shut the fuck up,” Eddie snapped, and Richie cackled hard as if that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. “You didn’t even ask me what I wanted.”

Richie blinked at him. “Would you prefer a sperm whale dick? Because I know of a couple shady sites that advertise for some special pills that make your shit grow like a magic beanstalk.”

“What?” Eddie said, half-way between disgust and confusion.

“Eds, I’ve seen that exact ad,” he said seriously, taking his hands off the steering wheel and turning to face him completely. “It’s important to me you know that.”

“And it’s important to me that you know I don’t give a shit,” Eddie replied. “And don’t call me that.” Richie raised his hands in surrender, but a stupid sort of smile was pulling at his lips. “And I wasn’t even talking about a magic beanstalk whale dick, I meant the fucking milkshakes.”

“What about the milkshakes?” Richie asked, raising an eyebrow in what could be real confusion.

“You didn’t ask me what I wanted before you ordered.”

“Oh.” Richie seemed to consider this. “Well, I guess I was getting the medium strawberry vibe from you. It could’ve been your shirt. I’m a psychic, you know.”

“No you’re fucking not,” Eddie said hardly before Richie had even finished talking, and he was rewarded with another one of Richie’s half-surprised laughs. “You’re lucky I like strawberry anyway.”

“Of course you do,” Richie said, pulling forward in the drive-through. “And I don’t see why you’re so upset, since I was obviously right.”

“This feels weirdly offensive.”

“What, you think I’m calling you gay because I thought you liked strawberry milkshakes and you actually do?” Richie asked, shooting him a glance that was bursting with an incoming joke - an expression Eddie, it seemed, was finding increasingly less difficult to identify. Richie’s face turned serious, but there was still that glint in his eyes. “Because it is. That’s fucking gay, dude.”

“I’m getting out of this fucking car,” Eddie said, and Richie laughed as Eddie pretended to reach for the car door handle. 

“No, don’t do that Eddie Spaghetti, I still have to lure you out to the back of Del Taco.”

“Not if I strangle you with a straw wrapper first,” Eddie said, but he was smiling, and he realized, strangely, that he was having fun.

_ “Ooh,  _ Mr. Spaghetti,” Richie fake-moaned obnoxiously, his voice raising about 10 octaves into an awful falsetto, “you know just how to talk to a girl, don’t you?”

  
  


\---

  
  


When they arrived back at Richie’s apartment, milkshakes half gone and arguing about nothing in particular, Richie motioned for Eddie to be quiet as they walked up the steps to the door. Eddie raised an eyebrow, but closed his mouth, crossing his arms. Richie fiddled with his keys, and then quietly unlocked the door, swinging it open with as little sound as possible before stepping inside. As soon as his feet had left the inside doormat, he shouted, _ “honey,  _ I’m  _ ho-ome!”  _

Eddie stared at him. “Are you a fucking idiot?” he asked, and Richie turned around to him, flashing him a smile.

“Only on Thursdays,” he said, gesturing for him to come in. “And I was checking for my roommate Stan. I couldn’t remember if he was coming back tonight or tomorrow.”

“So naturally your solution is to yell at nothing rather than just fucking ask?”

“You get it,” Richie said, depositing his milkshake and keys on the coffee table and plopping down on the couch. He toed off his shoes and gestured for Eddie to sit down, which Eddie did. He wasn’t sure what the protocol was, so he sat down a foot or so away from Richie, and he kept his shoes on, the milkshake cradled in his lap. “And besides,” Richie continued, not seeming to notice Eddie’s slight panic at how the hell he was supposed to handle himself, “Stan loves when I call him ‘honey.’ He blushes and everything.”

“I’m guessing that means he hates it and you do it purely to annoy him,” Eddie said, and Richie snapped his fingers with a grin.

“Quick on the uptake, aren’t you, Eds?”

“Don’t call me that,” Eddie replied, but Richie just ignored him, turning on the TV.

“So we could watch a show, or a movie, and I also have a Switch, an XBox, and a couple of VR games,” he said, looking at Eddie expectantly. His eyes were huge and blue behind his glasses, and Eddie remembered quite suddenly that he was terrible at making mundane decisions.

“I don’t know-”

“A minute on the clock, write down your answers,” Richie interrupted in a fairly okay impression of Alex Trebek. He began humming the Jeopardy theme song.

“You’re fucking insufferable, you know that, right?” Eddie asked, but Richie just transitioned from humming the Jeopardy theme song to belting it out opera-style.  _ “Fine,  _ just shut up. I guess the Switch.”

“You have to say it like you’re supposed to,” Richie said, back to a regular volume and no longer singing. “You know how it goes. Come on, I’ll give you a hint. What is…?”

“I’m not fucking doing that.”

“What is the Switch!” Richie said, clapping his hands together and standing up and going over to the TV and the games all around it. “That is correct, but since you didn’t risk any money, you don’t get any. Better luck next time, Edmund.”

Eddie rolled his eyes.

They played a couple of rounds of Mario Kart that Eddie lost terribly in (“Wow, Eddie, you moved up two spaces to ninth! Great job!” “Don’t be fucking condesending, asswipe.” “I have no idea what that means.”), and then it seemed Richie got bored of that, so they played Mortal Kombat, which Eddie also lost terribly in (“You can press those two buttons to kill me.” “Don’t be fucking patronizing.” “Eddie, I never stepped anywhere  _ near  _ your father. Can’t say the same for your mother, though.”) before Eddie set his controller down hard on the coffee table and glared at Richie. 

“You’re fucking cheating,” he said, even though he was sure he wasn’t and it was just that Eddie himself was horrendously awful at video games.

“I’m frankly  _ flabbergasted  _ that could even accuse me of such a thing,” Richie said, setting down his controller, too, and pressing a scandalized hand to his chest. “I made sure to end things with your mother before you came.”

“I literally cannot stand you,” Eddie said.

“Cool. Want to watch a movie?”

“Sure.”

The TV wouldn’t connect to the internet, so they moved into Richie’s room, which was cleaner than Eddie would’ve expected. The bed wasn’t made, but the floors were clean enough, which Eddie felt was fine. He sat down gingerly on the full-sized bed, bending down and unlacing his shoes and nudging them off his feet. When he looked back up, Richie was standing by the bed, looking vaguely uncomfortable.

Eddie raised his eyebrows. “What?”

“Listen, Eds,” Richie said, and when he saw Eddie already opening his mouth to say something, he quickly righted himself, “Eddie. Uh, I know I said I’m Richie, but I need to be frank with you.” Eddie squinted at him. Richie continued. “See, you seem, uh. Well, you’re a bit different from other people I’ve, you know, hooked up with. You’re more…” He seemed to flounder for a word, waving his hand and looking at Eddie for help.

Eddie didn’t give him any, feeling his mouth quirk up in amusement.

“Intelligent?” Richie tried, and then immediately shook his head. “No, that’s not what I mean. You’re just. Um. You’re just different, I guess. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable with anything, so…” He trailed off, looking at Eddie and scratching the back of his neck.

It was surprisingly sincere, and Eddie decided to be nice about it, especially since it did a lot to soothe his nerves.

“How about this,” he said, sticking out his hand. “If you do anything to make me uncomfortable, I’ll immediately say so.” He waved his hand a bit so that Richie would get the idea, and Richie’s face erupted into a smile, trying to give Eddie one of those bro-handshakes. “No, I mean like an actual handshake,” Eddie said, grabbing hold of Richie’s hand and shaking it.

“See? This is what I meant,” Richie said with a laugh, still shaking Eddie’s hand. “Who the fuck else would shake hands for real like this?”

“Plenty of people,” Eddie snapped. “Who the fuck starts a serious conversation with a dad joke?”

“Smart, sexy people,” Richie replied, letting go of Eddie’s hand to go over to the computer on his desk to pull up a movie from a folder that was labeled ‘definitely not illegally downloaded movies.’

Eddie watched him for a moment, fiddling with his fingers in his lap, and then he took in a breath. “Richie?”

“Hm?”

“Same for you,” he said, tucking his hands beneath his thighs. “About if I make you uncomfortable, I mean. You can just say so, and I’ll stop, no questions asked.”

Richie looked back at him, as if trying to read his expression in the low light of his room. And then he smiled, a little softly, Eddie thought. “Thanks, Eds,” he said, turning back to the computer, “but I doubt there’s anything you could do that would make me uncomfortable.”

Eddie bit the inside of his cheek, feeling his heart give an unsteady thump.

“Okay how about this one,” Richie said, clicking on one of the video files in the folder. “It’s a zombie movie, and it’s really good.” He looked back at Eddie expectantly, and Eddie shrugged. “Going once, going twice, sold.”

“You barely even paused between those words,” Eddie said as the movie started up and Richie grabbed a remote connected to his computer and flopped down onto the bed beside Eddie.

“Sorry, Eds, no refunds.”

“Don’t call me that,” Eddie said, and he could feel Richie still looking at him. “What the fuck do you want?”

“Your pillow talk is real sweet,” Richie said, and Eddie rolled his eyes. “Do you want to lay down or sit against the wall?”

“Lay down how?” Eddie asked, and Richie made a face at him, like that was somehow a stupid question.

“I don’t know. Just lay down.” He made a vague gesture at the bed. Eddie squinted. “Dude, are you, like, an alien or something? Have you heard of laying down before?”

“Oh, my god,  _ yes  _ I’ve heard of laying down before you fucking idiot,” Eddie snapped. “It just matters because laying down on my side makes my eyes water, and I fucking hate that.”

“What the fuck? Laying down makes your eyes water? What kind of eyeballs do  _ you  _ have?”

“Regular ones,” Eddie said, sticking his chin up. They both scooted back on the bed so that they were sitting side by side with their backs against the wall, and Richie shook his head in something like disbelief.

“Fucking no, regular eyeballs don’t cry when you lay down.”

“It’s not crying, it’s a perfectly natural response-”

“Eddie Spaghetti with the well-oiled eyeballs.”

“Is you brain made of fucking gummy worms?”

“Yeah, but only the blue and red kind.”

They continued watching the movie - or at least, watching about twenty seconds of the movie before Richie said something stupid and Eddie felt compelled to say something back at him, which inevitably devolved into a very stupid argument that had them both laughing and calling each other stupid. 

After a period of maybe thirty seconds of silence, Richie grabbed one of the pillows and smacked it into Eddie’s face.

“What the  _ fuck?”  _ Eddie snapped, grabbing the pillow from Richie’s hands and slamming it into RIchie’s face. “What the fuck was that for?”

“It got too quiet,” Richie said as if this was a perfectly natural reason, and Eddie stared at him.

“We are watching a movie, you know,” he said. “Traditionally, you’re not supposed to talk during those.”

“Yeah, but fuck that,” Richie said, throwing aside the pillow and shifting to face Eddie. “Do you know double-double-this-this?”

Eddie blinked at him. “The hand game?”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, yeah.” He also shifted to face Richie full on, crossing his legs and raising an eyebrow. “What about it?”

“See, I’m a master at it, and no one lives up to my skill-”

“At fucking double-double-this-this?”

“So let’s call this a competition-”

“At fucking  _ double-double-this-this?”  _ Eddie repeated, but RIchie just ignored him again.

“To see if you can beat me.” Richie held up his hands. “Fair warning, I go hard.” He paused. Grinned. “At double-double-this-this, too.”

“First of all,” Eddie said, bringing up his hands anyway, “this hand game isn’t a competition, so I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. And second of all, that was fucking stupid.”

“It definitely  _ is  _ a competition, and I’m going to win,” Richie replied, and he curled his hands into fists, looking at Eddie to follow. Eddie let out a sigh, making fists with his hands and holding them adjacent to Richie’s.

_ “Double double this this,”  _ they said together, a little out of sync, banging the sides of their fists together before smacking the palms of their hands together. Richie had been telling the truth - he was hitting Eddie’s hands rather hard.  _ “Double double that that,”  _ they said, repeating the motion but slapping the back of their hands together instead of their palms.  _ “Double double this-” _

“You messed up!” Richie said, their hands tangling together.

“No, I fucking didn’t,  _ you  _ did,” Eddie said, slapping away Richie’s hands. They were big, and rough, and warm.

“We’re doing it again,” Richie said, and Eddie rolled his hands. They brought their hands back up.

_ “Double double this-” _

“This time it was  _ definitely  _ you,” Eddie said, and Richie let out a huge cackle, pointing an accusatory finger at Eddie.

_ “Ha,  _ so you admit that you messed up the first time!”

“Fucking  _ no,  _ but you screwed it up this time, so just admit it,” Eddie said. Their hands were still touching.

“I didn’t,” Richie said, obstinate. 

“Did,” Eddie said, leaning forward to get in his face a bit.

“Didn’t,” Richie said. He leaned forward a bit, too, his lips curled up at the sides.

“Did,” Eddie repeated, and then Richie was leaning in more, and he was closing his eyes, and Eddie realized that -  _ holy shit - _ he was about to be kissed. He closed his eyes and the gap between them.

First impressions were as follows: wet.

It was anything but chaste - all sense of innocence went right out the window after the first millisecond of their lips touching, because then Richie was licking at Eddie’s bottom lip, and Eddie was opening his mouth and letting Richie examine his tonsils with his tongue. It wasn’t altogether unpleasant, but it was definitely… wet.

Eddie let his eyes open just the slightest, and he saw Richie’s cheek, so close to his, and the fan of his eyelashes behind his glasses. He could feel Richie’s stubble by his mouth, a little, but he could also see it, right there in front of him, and he reached up a hand to trace his fingers over it. 

And then Richie was lifting a hand and running his fingers through Eddie’s hair, starting from the base of his neck and travelling upward, and then he was making a fist in Eddie’s hair, and then he tugged - not hard, just enough for Eddie to feel it, and Eddie gasped into Richie’s mouth.

Because, well.

Hm.

It was at this point that Eddie let go of any reservations he might’ve had and proceeded to get embarrassingly messy about the whole thing. He actually wrapped his lips around Richie’s tongue and  _ sucked.  _ And it was a weird sensation, but it was good, and he got rewarded for it by Richie tugging on his hair a little more.

They ended up sideways, which was probably fine. And then Richie was trailing his hand down the front of Eddie’s shirt and toward the hem of his pants, and Eddie realized  _ huh. So this might be happening. _

Richie’s hand - big, warm - cupped the front of his jeans, and Eddie’s dick gave a very happy pulse in response. He was already half-hard and he suspected it wouldn’t take much more for him to get it all the way up.

Before Richie unbuttoned his pants, though, he pulled away just the slighted, smoothing back Eddie’s hair with his other hand. “Okay?” he asked, soft and husky and genuine.

“More than,” Eddie said, realizing he was telling the truth. He brought a hand down to grip at Richie’s dick, which was already making a frankly huge tent in his shorts, and Richie groaned. He pushed at Eddie until Eddie was on his back and Richie was straddling him, and from there, Richie resumed unbuttoning Eddie’s pants.

He kissed Eddie while he did so, pushing down both his jeans and briefs, and Eddie lifted his hips to help him out a bit, tangling his hands in Richie’s thick curls. One of Richie’s hands wrapped around his dick, and it was frankly  _ huge,  _ and Eddie let out a sigh against Richie’s mouth, tugging him closer.

“Eager, Eds?” Richie asked, smiling against Eddie’s mouth as he twisted his hand up Eddie’s dick with a lazy flick of his wrist.

Eddie bit at Richie’s bottom lip. “Don’t call me that. And I’m not the one who took my pants off after, like, thirty seconds of making out.”

“You didn’t stop me,” Richie said, thumbing over Eddie’s slit, and a small noise came out from the back of Eddie’s throat.

“I’m doing you a favor,” Eddie said, breathless, and Richie laughed. “Now are you going to take your dick out or am I going to have to ask nicely?”

“I think I’d like to see you ask nicely,” Richie said with a grin, and Eddie glared at him. “Fine, fine, dick coming out now. But let’s put a tab in you begging for my gorilla dick, alright?”

“I’m not going to beg,” Eddie said, but he watched Richie slip out of his shorts and boxers, and he bit the inside of his cheek. He wasn’t going to beg. Not even for a dick as huge and beautiful as that.

_ Beautiful? Who the fuck thinks of a dick as beautiful? _

Eddie now, apparently.

“Hope it’s not too much of an issue,” Richie said, giving his half-hard monster dick an idle tug with his free hand, “but I’m a giver. Any complaints?”

It was stupid, but Eddie desperately wanted to argue because he _knew_ that Richie knew he had a big dick, and he didn’t want to give Richie the satisfaction of getting Eddie flustered about it. But Eddie definitely was. Flustered about it.

So he was a size queen. Who knew.

“Yeah, fuck face,” Eddie said after a moment that was long enough for Richie to get a cocky grin. “You’re too busy jerking off your own ego rather than jerking me off.”

“My apologies, Eduardo, I’ll get right on that,” Richie said, still grinning.

And he did. 

Get right on that.

His hand was big, and nice, and rough, and Eddie found that he was enjoying it immensely as he tangled his fingers in Riche’s hair and sucked on his tongue. Richie’s hand trailed down his dick, squeezing gently at his balls, before tracing the space a little lower than that - a terrible, tantalizing motion that was setting Eddie’s teeth on edge. Richie pulled away from Eddie’s sloppy kiss, heavy-lidded eyes watching Eddie’s face as the pad of his pointer finger found Eddie’s hole and pressed - not hard, just enough to show he was there, and Eddie gasped, pressing his head into the pillows and turning his face to the side in embarrassment.

Richie leaned down, teeth scraping against his jaw, finger a steady present on his hole. “I have lube,” he said, voice low, and Eddie’s heart raced.

He could stop it here. Be satisfied with having his first kiss and his first hand job in the same night, and worrying about jumping the next hurdle later. But then he thought about Richie’s fucking huge ass dick and what that might feel like, and he thought about Richie’s long fingers, coated in lube, and Eddie definitely felt his own dick twtich.

“Just say you want to finger fuck me and let’s get this moving,” Eddie said, cheeks burning, and Richie laughed, plopping a wet kiss on his lips before leaving him to get the lube.

“Once again, Eds. Astonished by your impeccable bedside manner,” he said, riffling through the drawer of his nightstand. 

Eddie rolled his eyes, sitting up and taking off his shirt before laying back down and watching Richie get himself situated in between his legs. His eyes raked over Eddie’s bare body, and Eddie definitely saw Richie’s huge dick _move,_ like, entirely of its own accord. God. Holy fuck.

Richie popped open the cap of the lube, but Eddie shoved a foot on his torso before he could coat a finger. “You’re not touching me until you take that lame ass shirt off,” he said, and Richie raised an eyebrow.

“Are you fucking kidding me? You have  _ abs,  _ dude. My shirt is staying on, thanks very much,” Richie replied, trying to shove Eddie’s leg away, but Eddie held it steady, giving Richie a look.

“You’re not touching me until you take that lame ass shirt off,” he repeated, and Richie stared at him. Eddie raised his eyebrows.

Richie sighed, tugging his shirt off and throwing it to the side. He wouldn’t meet Eddie’s eyes for a moment, but Eddie just stared at him. 

Yeah, he didn’t have well-defined abs, or anything, but his chest was covered in little dark curls of hair, and a pleasant V cradled his soft stomach and led down to his dick. He may not have the sort of body that would land him on the cover of a men’s magazine, but the shape of him was strong and undeniably attractive in a way that was magnetic knowing he was in between Eddie’s legs. When Eddie finally managed to look back up at Richie’s eyes, Richie was already looking back at him, watching his face.

Eddie raised his arms, grabbing hold of Richie’s cheeks. “You’re, like, stupid hot. Now fuck me.”

A startled sort of laugh escaped Richie, and Eddie felt his cheeks warm up beneath his hands. He opened his mouth to say something, but Eddie knew it was going to be fucking stupid, so he squeezed his hands together, forcing Richie’s mouth shut.

“Shut up. Get your fingers to work,” he said, and Richie’s eyes glittered.

When Eddie let go of his face, letting his hands fall to the pillows, Richie grinned at him, coating his fingers in the lube. “Aye-aye, captain.”

“God, you’re fucking insufferable-  _ oh fuck.”  _ Richie had slipped his pointer finger into Eddie’s hole, and it’s not like it wasn’t something Eddie had never felt before - he definitely had experience fingering himself - but Richie’s finger was bigger and longer and he hadn’t warmed up the lube, so it was cold inside of him. Which was a strange feeling, but not altogether unpleasant.

Richie moved his finger in and out, slowly, leaning down and kissing Eddie dirty. Eddie sighed into his mouth, throwing his arms around Richie’s shoulders and tracing his fingers up his back before going up to his hair. There was so much of it, and it was so curly, and Eddie found that he liked having his hands in it, liked pushing it out of Richie’s face just to make it messy again by tangling his fingers through it.

Two fingers was fine - two fingers was always fine, and Richie was taking his damn sweet time. As he stretched his fingers inside of him, he leaned down and bit kisses into Eddie’s chest, sucking hard on his nipples until they stood straight up just so he could bite them again. Eddie pressed a hand on the back of Richie’s head as he sucked on his nipple, and Richie bit down hard - hard enough for a strangled sort of sound to fall out of Eddie’s mouth.

Richie shoved a third finger in and bit down hard on Eddie’s nipple again, and Eddie couldn’t help the sound that came from him as he arched his back because  _ holy fuck.  _ So he liked being bitten.

He also liked Richie’s long, thick fingers. 

He once again thought about Richie’s dick, and he licked his lips - entirely without thinking, and then he realized that he’d just  _ licked his lips  _ thinking about someone else’s  _ dick.  _ God, who the fuck even was he?

Whatever.

“Are you going to fuck me or not?” Eddie snapped, and Richie looked up at him, lips wet with spit stretching into a smile.

“I’m still hoping to see you beg,” he said, punctuating his words with a particularly hard thrust of fingers that had Eddie biting his lips to try and hold back a groan. “Come on, Eds. Say please.”

“Screw you, asshole,” Eddie gasped out as Richie went fast and hard with his fingers, and it was nice, so nice, but Eddie was still thinking about Richie’s dick and how it would probably feel  _ so much better.  _

“I believe that’s what  _ you’re  _ trying to do,” Richie said with a shit-eating grin, still moving his fingers fast inside Eddie. “All I’m asking for is a simple word.”

Eddie glared at him as much as he was able, and Richie laughed like he was having the time of his life. And then he slipped a fourth finger inside of Eddie’s hole, not even breaking his fast pace, and Eddie’s eyes were rolling up to the ceiling, and his mouth fell open, and he felt a little bit like screaming.

Richie grabbed Eddie’s jaw with his free hand, forcing him to look him in the eye while he straight up fucked the shit out of him with his fingers. “Wouldn’t you much rather be taking my gorilla dick?” he asked, and Eddie breathed out a laugh between panting breaths, rolling his eyes.

“Shut up about the stupid fucking gorilla dick,” he said, and Richie smiled at him, a little mean, and Eddie found the sight going straight to his  _ own  _ dick, which was achingly hard and leaking profusely.

“I could put my whole fist inside of you,” Richie said, like it was just a casual fucking observation, and Eddie closed his eyes, clenching his jaw as he realized that  _ wow, okay that actually sounded pretty hot what the fuck.  _ “Or,” Richie said, right up against Eddie’s mouth, “I could just do this.”

He let go of Eddie’s jaw and ripped his fingers out of his hole, leaving him so bereft of sensation that Eddie’s eyes snapped open and he reached out for Richie as more of an instinct rather than anything else. But Richie just grabbed his wrists with his hands, pinning them over his head and leaning down over him, the only point of contact where one -  _ one  _ \- of his huge palms were wrapped around Eddie’s wrists.

“Jackass,” Eddie breathed, and Richie smiled.

“Give me the magic words, Eds,” he sing-songed, flexing his fingers over Eddie’s wrists. “I’ll even tell you what they are. ‘Please fuck me, Rich’ - that’s it. Four little words.”

Eddie realized he wanted to. His cheeks burned. 

But instead of doing what he wanted, Eddie slipped his hands out of Richie’s loose grasp and grabbed Richie’s hair, pulling him into a kiss that was violent in its desperation. And then he brought one of his hands down and found Richie’s dick, huge, pulsing, and gave it a rough tug. Richie groaned into his mouth, and Eddie loosened his grip on RIchie’s hair just enough to talk.

_ “Fuck me,”  _ he said, and he hadn’t said it exactly as Richie wanted, but he might as well have because then Richie was taking hold of the base of his dick and the tip of it was pressing against Eddie’s hole, and it was  _ huge.  _

And then he was pushing inside, and it was weird, and it was hot, but it was good - it hardly even hurt because Richie had spent so much time opening him up. 

When he was fully inside, Richie dropped his head onto Eddie’s collarbone, breathing hard, and Eddie ran his fingers through his hair, pressing a kiss to the side of his face.

They stayed like that for a minute, and then Eddie wiggled his hips, making Richie’s breath hitch. “I remember saying that I wanted you to fuck me, not that I wanted to be your cock warmer,” Eddie said, and Richie laughed, sitting up and beginning to move his hips slowly, hands gripping Eddie’s sides.

“You’ve got such a way with words, Eds.”

“Stop calling me that,” Eddie said, and Richie grinned, ramming his dick in straight to the hilt in response, and  _ oh fuck  _ he could feel it in his  _ stomach.  _

It seemed that whatever had happened on Eddie face when Richie had done that was something that Richie liked because then he was pulling out slowly, enough for the tip to pull against his rim, and then he was slamming back inside of him, hard enough for his balls to slap against Eddie’s ass, and Eddie moaned like a porn star completely on accident.

Because-

Well, because this wasn’t his first time with something inside of him - he’d fingered himself before and had just gotten fingered by Richie - but Richie’s dick was  _ huge  _ and it was so much different than fingers. It was a hard, thick, and long intrusion in his body as it moved in and out, sliding against his walls and pushing deep inside of him, and the only way he seemed to be able to respond was a short, breathy moan leaving his throat with each deep, rough intrusion inside him.

“Jesus Christ,” Richie said under his breath, fingers digging hard into Eddie’s sides, and then he was pushing in faster and harder, and Eddie was crying out these super embarrassing moans that he couldn’t even try to stop. Richie leaned down, and he buried his face in Eddie’s neck, sucking and biting sloppy kisses up and underneath his jaw as he pistoned his hips, moving his huge dick in and out of Eddie’s hole.

Eddie tangled his fingers into Richie’s hair, getting lost in the sensation of Richie’s teeth and tongue and dick, and he realized he was  _ smiling - _ nearly laughing in between moans. Because it felt good. God, it felt good.

And then Richie slapped his ass. Hard. 

Eddie’s breath hitched in the middle of a moan, and  _ wow  _ that had felt good. Richie’s hand, huge, slapping his ass. Richie pulled away from his neck, looking up at him like he was about to ask if that had been okay, and Eddie grabbed his face, staring into his lust dark eyes. “Again,” he said, and then Richie was diving into a sloppy kiss, ramming into him fast and hard, and he pulled his hand back and slapped Eddie’s ass hard once, twice, three times, and Eddie cried out like he was about to die.

Richie broke their kiss, leaning back and grabbing one of Eddie’s legs and hitching it up over his shoulder, and that somehow made his dick slip  _ deeper  _ inside of him, and Eddie threw his head back and moaned because  _ it was good it was so good. _

“You’re so fucking sexy,” Richie said through gritted teeth, and it was unbelievably hot - unbelievably  _ hotter  _ when he slapped Eddie’s ass again before putting that same hand he’d used to slap him over Eddie’s neck. He didn’t squeeze, or anything, just rested his palm there like his neck was a fucking hand rest, and tears were leaking out of Eddie’s eyes as he choked out moans like it was his job.

“Who the fuck even says sexy anymore,” Eddie managed to say, and Richie laughed, moving his hand so that his thumb was right over Eddie’s lips.

“Hot and sexy people,” Richie replied, and Eddie opened his mouth and bit down on Richie’s thumb just hard enough for Richie to laugh again before sucking it in earnest.

And something about the way he was doing it - moving his tongue over the pad of his thumb with his lips wrapped around it - must have been good to Richie, because he felt a little bigger inside Eddie, all of the sudden, and he was going harder and rougher, and his eyes were steady on Eddie’s mouth. And Eddie - stupidly, deliriously - gave him a show. Because he wanted to. 

He was going insane.

Richie took his thumb out of Eddie’s mouth only to replace it with his tongue, and Eddie’s sucked on that in a similar way that had Richie’s breath hot in his face, little noises from the back of his throat making Eddie’s dick throb just as much as the dick ramming up his ass.

On a particularly hard thrust, Eddie broke the kiss - if you could even call it that - and yelled up at the ceiling like God or something else of that manner was up there because  _ Jesus Fucking Christ,  _ and at that exact same moment, the computer (which he’d entirely forgotten was still playing that movie that neither of them had paid attention to) let out a burst of noise. Screaming maybe. People might be dying. Eddie felt similarly.

Richie took a hand off him long enough to scramble for the remote to the computer that had been abandoned amongst the tangle of blankets and promptly lowered the volume until the dominating sound was his ragged breathing, the undeniably gross squelching sounds from Eddie’s ass, and Eddie’s punched-out pornstar moans.

“What,” Eddie asked, voice so worn out and breathless that it was hardly recognizable to his own ears, “you wanted to hear me?”

“Fuck yeah I did,” Richie all but growled, leaning down to snag his teeth on Eddie’s earlobe.

So, like, that was hot. 

Altogether, this experience was shaping out to not only be a loss of various types of virginity, but also a discovery of various types of kinks that Eddie now supposed he’d have to deal with. That was fine.

Richie pulled all the way out of Eddie, leaving a gaping absence inside of Eddie that had him crying out nearly as loud as when he had a dick inside of him, and Eddie gripped Richie’s back, digging his fingernails into his skin. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, and Richie laughed, pressing his huge dick against Eddie’s far smaller neglected one and wrapping a huge hand around both.

“Do you want me to cum inside you, Eds? Because I would only do that provided I can suck it out,” he said, starting to jerk them both off. He spoke lightly, but Eddie could see the strain in his face - how close he was.

“I feel like that’s -  _ fuck -  _ a little narcisstic,” Eddie gasped as Richie’s hand twisted up, as the tip of his dick nudged against the head of Richie’s.

“Are you fucking psychoanalyzing me while I jerk you off?” Richie asked incredulously, a breathless laugh falling from his lips.

“‘Psychoanalyzing’? Didn’t know you had a word that big in your dictionary,” Eddie snapped back, curling a hand in Richie’s hair and pulling hard.

And then Richie’s face contorted, breath stuttering, and he was beautiful - he was beautiful - and Eddie felt something hot splatter on his stomach as Richie’s hand slowed its movements. 

Richie dropped his head onto Eddie’s collarbone, breath warm on his skin, and Eddie felt Richie’s dick twitch up against his. He shuttered.

“You just fucking,” Richie said, still breathing hard, dick still twitching, “made me cum to the word ‘dictionary.’”

Eddie snorted out a frankly very ugly laugh, and Richie bit his shoulder hard, making his laugh turn up into a moan. And then Richie was taking his hand off their dicks, his mouth biting a trail down Eddie’s chest. He was already below his stomach before Eddie realized what he was going down to do.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Eddie said, hands whipping down to grip at Richie’s hair as his lips found the base of Eddie’s still hard dick. “I swear to fucking God, Rich-”

“You don’t want me to?” Richie asked, looking up at Eddie through his stupid thick glasses, his face right there by his dick - his cheek was pressed against the shaft for christsake - and Eddie let out a whimpering sort of sound, head falling back against the pillows. Richie pressed a kiss to Eddie’s shaft. “Tell me you want it,” he said, and both of them watched Eddie’s dick twitch at the sound of the words.

“I want to cum is what I want,” Eddie snapped, glaring down at Richie and biting his lip as Richie pumped a slow hand up and back down his dick.

“Yeah, but I could use my hand, or you could do it yourself” - he let go of Eddie’s dick here, and Eddie let out such a pathetic sort of sound that had Richie immediately grabbing his dick again and grinning, the bastard - “or you could cum down my throat.” Eddie’s dick throbbed.

“You’re fucking insufferable,” Eddie said, cheeks burning. “Suck my dick.”

It was an insult, but it was also permission.

“Don’t have to tell me twice, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie said, and Eddie made a face.

“Don’t call me that when you’re about to suck my-  _ jesus fuck.” _

Richie’s mouth was soft, and it was warm, and it was  _ currently wrapped around Eddie’s dick.  _ So that was happening. And God, Jesus, fuck and all the others - it felt good. It felt so good.

And he’d felt like he’d been on the precipice of cumming for so long now - with the biting and hair pulling and spanking and Richie’s hands and his teeth and his huge fucking dick inside of him - but now it was coming, and it was real, and he felt like he was dying. 

Richie’s tongue pressed against his slit.

He was going to fucking die.

It was when Richie went down to the fucking hilt, nose pressed to Eddie’s abdomen, Eddie’s dick pressed to the back of his throat, that Eddie cried out and let himself go, hands gripping tight to Richie’s hair. He wanted to hold him there, to make Richie choke it all down, but he didn’t, and Richie pulled off just in time for a rope of cum to splatter against his glasses. He grinned.

It was disgusting.

It was also maybe the hottest thing Eddie had ever seen.

He pulled Richie up and slipped his tongue into Richie’s mouth, tasting the cum still on his lips, and Richie deepened the kiss as much as he could, stroking Eddie through the rest of his orgasm until Eddie was gasping with overstimulation, turning his face away from Richie and squeezing his eyes shut. His mouth tasted like his own cum.

“Now who’s the narcissistic one?” Richie asked, biting a kiss into Eddie’s neck.

“Shut the fuck up,” Eddie breathed, and they both laughed, breathless.

They stayed like that for a strange, weightless sort of moment. And then Richie was planting a sloppy, disgusting sort of kiss onto Eddie’s cheek before rolling off him, collecting his stupid shirt and his stupid gym shorts and walking over to the bathroom. Eddie watched him go, most definitely staring at his butt.

He just got fucked by a guy who wore gym shorts.

He could’ve sworn he had higher standards than that.

Then again, as he lay boneless on the mattress, perfectly satiated, he supposed there were worse situations to be in. 

Richie returned a moment later, fully dressed in plaid sleep shorts and a shirt with the Jurassic Park logo on it and holding a damp towel. He tossed the towel to Eddie with little warning, and Eddie shot him a glare. “You’ve got jizz on your glasses.”

“It’s my snack for later,” Richie replied, and Eddie gagged, like, audibly. Richie sniggered before leaving the room for a moment. Eddie took the time to clean himself off and get back dressed.

It was a strange feeling - not exactly shameful, just… odd. He thought vaguely that if he’d just gotten railed by someone that he cared about or cared about him or known for longer than a few hours that he would’ve been able to borrow clothes. Not that it seemed like Richie owned any clothes that weren’t atrocious, but still. It was weird.

When Richie returned, Eddie was fully dressed once more, sitting on the edge of the bed and staring down at his socks, which he realized he’d never really gotten the opportunity to take off before getting stuffed by a monster dick. He had just gotten fucked straight to hell and back. Wearing his long socks with the sailboats on them.

“Here you are, Captain,” Richie said, making some sort of terrible pirate voice. Eddie cringed, taking what Richie was offering him without even looking at it. “Cute socks. Wanted you to know I saw them.”

As it turned out, what Richie handed him was a glass of water. Eddie looked up at him. “You saw my socks and didn’t say  _ anything  _ about them before you stuck your dick in me?”

“The sailboat socks stay  _ on  _ during sex,” Richie replied solemnly, and Eddie couldn’t help but snort in response. Richie smiled - a softer sort of smile - and then he turned around, fiddling around with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter that was resting on his desk. He lit one of the cigarettes, held closely between his lips, and then pushed open the doors to the measly balcony, letting in a brush of the cold night air as he leaned against the railing.

Eddie looked back to the computer, watching the movie that he definitely wouldn’t be able to recall if his life was on the line, and taking big gulps of the water. He hadn’t even really realized he was thirsty until Richie had given him the glass.

The water was more than half gone before Eddie stood up, leaving his water on the nightstand and joining Richie on the balcony. Richie spared him a glance as he leaned against the railing next to him, a curl of smoke falling from his lips. He still had jizz -  _ Eddie’s  _ jizz - on his glasses.

“God, you’re fucking disgusting,” Eddie said, and Richie’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, a laugh startling him into a coughing fit. Eddie watched him try and compose himself before reaching over and grabbing his glasses, cleaning the thick frames with the bottom of his shirt. “Were you just going to let the jizz  _ ferment  _ there? How would you even be able to see? And you know cigarettes are so fucking bad for you, right? You’re going to get a black lung, all shriveled up and shit.”

Eddie didn’t really know how the whole ‘ _ after sex’  _ thing was supposed to work. The way Richie was laughing, though, he supposed he was doing alright.

“You’re a real treasure, you know that, Eds?” Richie replied, stark blue eyes flicking between Eddie’s face and his hands, still trying to clean off Richie’s frankly disgusting glasses. Based off of how thick the lenses were, Eddie doubted he could see anything, but he still felt his skin prickle as Richie’s eyes traced over him.

“Don’t fucking call me that,” Eddie replied, shoving the glasses in Richie’s general direction. Richie closed his eyes and leaned forward - and down, a bit, he was too fucking tall - and Eddie chewed on the inside of his cheek, willing himself not to be too charmed. “I’m not fucking doing that.”

Richie raised his eyebrows, opening his eyes and batting his eyelashes.

“Stop that,” Eddie said. He might’ve been smiling. 

Richie smiled, and he took a drag from his cigarette. He kept his eyes steady with Eddie’s.

“You have your own fucking hands,” Eddie replied.

“Yeah, but they’re full.” He gestured to his cigarette, and then lifted his free hand to push it up through Eddie’s hair, making a loose fist. Eddie felt his stomach lurch, his spent dick throb. 

“That was fucking lame,” Eddie said, despite the fact that it was incredibly hot, and he pushed Richie’s glasses onto his face. He didn’t do it tender or soft or anything - he really did it kind of roughly - but Richie still stared at him like he did.

For a moment, Eddie thought Richie was going to kiss him.

But then Richie let go of him, turning back to the balcony and taking another drag from his cigarette. He gave Eddie a sideways sort of glance. “You totally thought it was sexy, though.”

“What is it with you and the word ‘sexy’? It’s not a good word. You sound like a creepy old man.”

“A  _ sexy  _ creepy old man,” Richie shot back, and Eddie rolled his eyes.

A moment of silence elapsed between them, but it was a comfortable sort of silence to Eddie. The cold bit at his cheeks, and he looked over at Richie - at his stupid thick glasses, his rough stubble, his unkempt hair. By all means, he shouldn’t be attractive.

Richie wrapped his lips around the cigarette.

God, he was so fucking hot.

As if sensing Eddie’s thoughts, Richie met Eddie’s eyes, lips curling up into a smile. “Take a picture. It’ll last longer.”

“You’re filled to the brim with shitty pick up lines that don’t and have never worked,” Eddie said.

“I’m also filled to the brim with your mom.”

“You’re a fucking child.”

“You’re just mad because I’m getting pegged by your mother.”

Eddie shook his head, trying to hide his smile down at the ground. When he looked back up, Richie was watching him in a weird, careful sort of way, cigarette idle between his fingers.

“Are you fr-”

“I should probably-”

They both stopped. Stared at each other for a moment.

“Jinx, you owe me a coke,” Richie said, and Eddie blinked.

“We didn’t even say the same thing,” Eddie said, and Richie shrugged. “And anyway I was saying I should probably go.”

Richie blinked. Smiled. “Of course, Eddie Spaghetti. Need your beauty sleep do you? Gonna change into your sleep khakis?”

“You’re fucking insufferable,” Eddie said with a laugh and a shake of his head.

Richie walked him to the door, saluted him at the entryway. “It’s been a pleasure, Eds.”

Eddie wondered if he was supposed to have a nice, normal thing to say to that. He decided on: “Goodnight, Richie.”

Richie leaned against the doorframe. Brought the cigarette up to his lips, but didn’t breathe in. Just held it there. “Drive safe, Captain.”

And Eddie walked back to the car, and he started it up, and he drove safe - because of course he did. And if he thought at all about what Richie might’ve been about to say when they’d spoken over each other, he pushed it out of his mind just as fast.

And he got back to the dorm parking lot, cursed over the lack of empty spaces near the entrance, parked the car, walked briskly through the cold, hands dug deep into his jacket pockets, and he went up to his room.

Ben was still out. That was nice.

And Eddie showered, and then he went to sleep.

And that was that.

  
  


\---

  
  


Eddie pushed into the Starbucks on campus, wiping a hand down his face. How was it that it was just three weeks into the semester and he had two tests and three essays due within the next week? He was going to run away. Quit college. Start a Youtube channel or do whatever it is young people did nowadays to get money.

As he waited in line to get his double shot whatever-the-fuck, he glanced around the cafe. There were students camped out in the booths and tables scattered across the room, and Eddie let his eyes drift over all of them, not focusing on any one person because that would be weird. He’d just decided to keep his eyes trained vaguely on the menu above the counter when-

“Eds? Eddie Spaghetti? That you?”

Eddie froze.

Okay, so the thing is. Yes, he’d lost his virginity a little over three weeks ago, and yes, it was good -  _ great -  _ sex that he thought about sometimes while rubbing one out every so often, but. Well. He hadn’t expected to ever see the lame ass hot motherfucker who he’d lost his virginity to ever again. And he’d convinced himself he was okay with that.

But that lame ass hot motherfucker was here, in this stupid college Starbucks, and he was using those terrible nicknames, and he was  _ bounding up to Eddie.  _

“Eddie,” Richie said, like it was some sort of relief, and his big hand -  _ rough, warm -  _ wrapped lightly around his bicep. “I knew it was you as soon as you walked in with your little sailboat socks.”

Eddie’s cheeks flushed, and he rubbed his cold nose with the back of his hand. “I’m not wearing the sailboat socks, dipshit,” Eddie said, without really even thinking.  _ God. What the  _ fuck  _ was the protocol? _

“It was a metaphor,” Richie replied, taking his hand off Eddie’s arm to stuff his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants. “I was straight up pulling out literary devices. I’m disappointed that you didn’t recognize my efforts.”

“I don’t think you know what a metaphor is,” Eddie said, and,  _ wow,  _ in all the ways he remembered the night he’d spent getting railed by Richie, he’d managed to forget how  _ easy  _ it was. Aside from the sex. Just. How easy talking was.

“Funny, that’s exactly what my professor said.” He pushed up his stupid thick glasses, looking Eddie up and down. “You look like you’re about to pass away. Like straight up deep-dive into a grave. Church bells tolling and the like.”

Eddie raised an eyebrow. “Thanks.”

“Don’t tell me you’re overworking yourself,” Richie said, adopting some sort of deep, baritone, supposedly fatherly voice. “You know how I worry.”

The line went up, and they both stepped forward. Eddie glanced at him. “I thought you planned to murder me behind a Del Taco.”

“Yes, and that sort of intimate murder requires a gentle touch,” Richie said, a little sultry but in a stupid sort of way, and Eddie rolled his eyes. Richie bit his lip, smiled a little. “What you been up to, Eds?”

“Don’t call me that,” Eddie replied. They stepped forward again in the line. “And school, mostly. This semester’s a bitch.”

“Oh, yeah, she screws us all,” Richie said, nodding sagely. “Not pleasantly, though. I’m sure you know the difference.”

“Fuck you,” Eddie said, without any heat.

“Been there, done that,” Richie replied - gleefully, like he’d been waiting for Eddie to say that just so he could make that exact stupid reply. He was so stupid. And so hot. Fuck.

“Yeah, and it was the best you’ve had,” Eddie said, stepping forward in the line. He’d said it so casually. Literally who the fuck was he.

_ “Ooh,  _ a  _ confident  _ Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie said, but his cheeks were tinged red. Eddie felt his stomach lurch. Ah.

The person in front of them had a short order, and so Richie ducked to the side as Eddie relayed his order of his double-triple-whatever the fuck. At this point he just said words that were vaguely coffee-related and hoped for the best. The bored, obviously gay girl behind the counter gave him his total, but before Eddie could pull out his card, Richie leaned in and swiped his own card. Eddie furrowed his eyebrows. Richie winked. The girl behind the counter looked between them.

“Sorry,” Eddie said, for no particular reason at all, and then he moved to the side to wait for his order. Richie followed after him, standing beside him, and Eddie shot him a look. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“What can I say? I’m feeling generous,” Richie replied with a lazy sort of shrug. “So what are you doing for the rest of this fine Wednesday afternoon?”

Eddie gave him a look. “Dude, it’s Monday.”

Richie blinked. “Hm. That’s new.”

“Please get a better control over yourself,” Eddie said, and Richie laughed. “And for the rest of this  _ Monday  _ afternoon, I have to study, read a few articles, study some more, and then go to a study group later tonight.”

“That’s boring as hell,” Richie said, and Eddie shrugged. Someone behind the counter called his name, and Eddie went over to grab his drink. He returned to Richie, feeling a little awkward.

What was the protocol? If Richie hadn’t said hi, he would’ve just been able to leave - feeling weird and off-kilter, but leave all the same. But Richie  _ had  _ said hi, and now they were talking and they were friendly, so now what was he supposed to do? Exchange niceties? With someone who had stuffed their entire dick inside of him in what was supposed to be a one night stand?

Jesus Christ.

“Give me your phone,” Richie said, and Eddie was so startled out of his thoughts that he did it without question. “No passcode?  _ And  _ the default wallpapers? Are you fucking insane?”

“What the fuck,” Eddie said.

“I know you’re a little busy boy,” Richie said, waggling his fingers at him, “who has to do boring gross stuff like study, so I won’t keep you longer.  _ But”  _ \- he drew the word out, typing something into Eddie’s phone - “I will bother you later.” He handed the phone back to Eddie, the screen still open on a new text message that said ‘eddie spaghetti’ sent to a contact that was now apparently saved into his phone whose name was ‘big dick rich.’

“Oh,” Eddie said. Oh.

He looked up at Richie. Richie looked back at him, something in his easy expression tense. 

“Don’t text me an excessive amount of stupid shit,” Eddie said, and that seemed to make that tension in Richie’s face bleed away into a grin.

“No promises, Eds,” Richie replied, and Eddie shook his head, walking toward the exit.

“Don’t fucking call me that,” he called back as he walked out into the cold air, and Richie laughed.

Eddie looked down at his phone. Okay. This was fine.

  
  


\---

  
  


This was not fine. 

As it stood, Eddie knew exactly what sort of person he was. He was a shitty, neurotic, repressed as all hell pretentious asshat, and he made every single decision every single day of his life based off of that knowledge. Sure, deciding to get screwed was a weird - but perhaps inevitable - lapse, but he thought he’d chosen the person to screw him quite well. Some average sort of guy on a dating app; no connection, no prospect, no chance in hell of ever having to see him again aside from weird eye contact at an H-E-B seven months after they’d had mind-blowingly average sex.

But Richie fucked all that up about as thoroughly as he fucked Eddie himself. Which, as he thought about as much as he tried to avoid thinking about, was _very_ thoroughly. He had been stupid and funny and good at sex and nice and charming and just  _ good,  _ and Eddie didn’t.

Well. Eddie didn’t know how to deal with that. He’d deleted the dating app he’d met Richie on two days after they’d met, and since Richie hadn’t messaged him in that time, Eddie just figured it was over. And that had been alright with him.

Until Richie had bounded up to him at the campus fucking Starbucks, paid for his coffee, saved his number into his phone, and had since begun sending Eddie stupid fucking iFunny memes and voice messages of nonsense noises and his terrible (very good) impressions often enough for him to be a near constant presence in Eddie’s mind. Eddie was in grave danger of becoming friends with Richie.

Worse, he was in even graver danger of having  _ feelings.  _ Which was so fucking stupid. Richie wasn’t even cool.

And yet he was stupid funny, hot as hell, and every text received from him reminded Eddie that he had a huge dick. No, he hadn’t changed the contact name Richie had put into his phone. No, he didn’t want to unpack that.

“What do you say, Eddie?”

Eddie looked up from his phone - he’d been staring at a text message from Richie asking him if he wanted to hang out with him and his friends for the past ten minutes - and squinted at Ben. “What?”

Ben gave him one of those looks he had - that sort of exasperated, kind sort of look that only someone like Ben could pull off. “About hanging with Bev and a couple of guys she knows from her gender politics class. I asked if you wanted to come to a movie night with me and them.”

“Oh.” Eddie looked down at his phone. Richie was asking to hang out tomorrow. “Is it tomorrow?”

“Yeah, seems like it,” Ben said with a shrug, and Eddie breathed out a sigh of relief even as his chest tightened in disappointment. No, he wasn’t going to unpack that either.

He told Richie that he couldn’t hang out with him the next day because he already had plans. And then he threw his phone across the room.

Ben raised his eyebrows.

“It’s nothing,” Eddie said in a way that probably implied it was something. 

Ben seemed to think for a moment. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

“No, I’m going,” Eddie said, flopping back onto his bed. He was giving up on a chance to hang out with Richie for this. No. Try again. It was his excuse to get out of hanging out with Richie.

Fuck.

“You okay?” Ben asked.

“Fucking fantastic. What movie are we watching?”

  
  


\---

  
  


They were apparently watching Real Steel.

It also became apparent as soon as Eddie arrived with Ben at Bev’s apartment that the thing that Richie had invited him to was none other than the exact same event that Eddie had turned him down for. Because Richie was there.

As soon as Eddie walked in, his eyes had immediately found Richie’s like some sort of fucking shitty teen romance movie or something, and he’d watched Richie grin, and he’d suffered through introductions to the guys from Bev’s gender politics class - Bill, Mike, and Stan, who was apparently the same Stan that was Richie’s roommate - and then they’d all sat on the couch or the floor, and he realized that he was sitting flush against Richie on the couch, and now he was thinking about how much he hated his life.

“It’s so weird that you and Richie know each other,” Bev said as she maneuvered through the Netflix home screen on the TV to find Real Steel. It was in the ‘Watch it Again’ category.

“It’s actually a funny story,” Richie started, sitting up a little straighter in his seat as if getting ready to tell everyone  _ everything.  _ “We actually-”

“-Met at the campus Starbucks,” Eddie interrupted, elbowing Richie hard enough in the ribs for him to release a startled  _ ‘oof’  _ sort of sound. “Yeah, Richie came up to bother me in line because he - because he thought my socks were stupid.” 

“Sounds like Richie,” Stan said from his spot curled up in the armchair. “So intrusive.”

“That’s what she said,” Richie said, immediately leaning over and holding up a hand for a high-five toward Stan. Stan sighed heavily, and then leaned over and pushed his fist against Richie’s palm. “Fuck yeah,” Richie said enthusiastically, retracting his hand.

Then the movie was starting and then Eddie was pulling out his phone and sending Richie a text that said “if you tell anyone here we fucked I’ll wreck your shit.”

Not even a second later an obnoxiously loud voice that said  _ “Kermit the Frog here, you got a new text message” _ sounded in a perfect imitation of Kermit the Frog, and Richie dug his phone out of his sweatpants pocket. No one else in the room reacted to the text sound, so Eddie figured he shouldn’t say anything about that, but he couldn’t resist saying, “what the fuck, why is your sound on so loud, we’re watching Real Steel you asshole.”

“Yeah, what the fuck, we’re watching a masterpiece,” Bev said from the other side of the couch, lifting a leg to shove her foot against Richie’s thigh. “Have some respect.”

“Don’t be jealous just ‘cause I had Kermit the Frog himself record my ringtone,” Richie replied, but Eddie saw him flick the sound off his phone anyway.

“I was literally there when you recorded that,” Bill said, pushing Richie’s foot away when Richie tried to kick him. “You practiced for weeks.”

“Hey, Bill?” Richie said in a frankly perfect Kermit the Frog impression. “Kermit the Frog here telling you to shut the fuck up.”

“Richie,” Stan said before Bill could reply - though Eddie definitely saw him take a deep breath to get ready for one - “if you don’t shut your stupid trash mouth, I’ll kill you.”

“Promise?” Richie asked. Stan threw a pillow at him. Richie shut up.

And then Eddie had to watch as Richie actually looked down at his phone to read what Eddie had sent him. Well, not that he, like, actually  _ watched -  _ he looked out of the corner of his eye so he wouldn’t be so obvious, keeping his eyes mostly trained on Reel Steel and Hugh Jackman. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Richie bite his lip. The blue light from his phone bounced off the lenses of his glasses, shielding his eyes from Eddie’s view.

Eddie’s phone buzzed.

A text from Richie.

_ “ah hA ha and then what ;)” _

Eddie shot him a glare. Richie grinned back at him - terrible, charming, childish. Despite himself, Eddie felt himself soften, and he knew Richie could see it because his stupid hot smile reached his eyes a little more. Eddie turned back to his phone.

_ “I’m serious,”  _ he messaged back.

Pause.

Hugh Jackman was sexy and grimy onscreen, fucking around with a robot.

Eddie’s phone buzzed with a reply from Richie.

_ “i know” _

Another pause. Eddie figured that was the end of it. Hugh Jackman’s son started bonding with a robot.

Eddie’s phone buzzed again.

_ “huge jackman” _

Eddie snorted.

  
  


\---

  
  


So this was Eddie’s life now: school, homework, hanging out with Ben, hanging out with Ben and Bev, homework, texting Richie, hanging out with the ‘Loser’s Club’ as Bev liked to call the group from gender politics plus Richie and Ben and Eddie, avoiding Richie, homework, texting Richie, thinking about Richie, avoiding thinking about Richie, and homework.

To sum it up succinctly: he was going through a crisis. Not, like, a huge crisis, but, like, a small, constant small droning of background crisis. And there was nothing he could do about it.

Of course, he could talk to Ben about what happened, but the idea of doing that was actually terrible, really. Same with Bev. Because talking about Richie would mean having to admit that Richie is a problem that he has. Which would mean admitting how they actually met. 

He could just say that he was developing feelings for Richie, but that would require saying he was developing feelings for Richie, and that was absolutely out of the question.

So. Crisis.

It didn’t help that every time the Loser’s Club hung out (which was admittedly very often - even with the crisis that is Eddie’s entire life and Richie, he really did like the Losers), Richie stuck to him like sidewalk gum. It was like torture. Torture that Eddie was becoming  _ far  _ too okay with, which was highly worrying considering Richie’s disgusting corn-chip smelling sock-covered foot was currently pushing at Eddie’s face and the only reason Eddie pushed it away was because he felt like that was probably the right move to make. And also because pushing it away meant putting his hand on Richie’s ankle, touching his skin.

God. He was going insane.

“Get your disgusting fucking foot away from me, jackass,” Eddie said, attempting to type the same email to his professor asking about a mistake on the syllabus that he’d been attempting to type for the past seven minutes. “I don’t even want to fucking know how long it’s been since you’ve washed your socks. You’re going to make me throw up.”

Eddie’s palm pressed against Richie’s ankle.

Richie laughed, pulling his foot back - severing the contact - and shifting positions on Bev’s couch so that he was between Eddie’s legs, pushing down his laptop screen. “All you do is write emails and read textbooks. I’m betting anything that you’re writing an email right now.”

His arm hair was brushing against Eddie’s leg hair. The ghost of sensation made heat pull at the bottom of his stomach even as he scowled.

“I would’ve finished it earlier if you hadn’t been bothering me for the past three hours.”

“The joys of studying with Richie,” Mike said from the kitchen table. The rest of the Loser’s replied with a chorus of ‘amen’s. Stan’s was especially loud.

“Fuck all of y’all,” Richie said, flipping onto his back. His  _ head  _ was on Eddie’s  _ thigh.  _ “I’m an absolute  _ delight.  _ Your mom even said so last night.”

Eddie wanted to punch him in the face. He also wanted to suck on his tongue. This was fine. He was fine.

“Ha ha, very funny,” Eddie said. “Remind me to tell your sister all about you and your little jokes tonight while she rails me.”

Richie laughed so suddenly and so hard that he choked on his spit, sitting up and falling back on the other side of the couch in order to catch his breath. And then he looked at Eddie - dark curls a mess, blue eyes bright, smile caught somewhere between a laugh and an emotion Eddie didn’t want to think about hard enough to name - and Eddie felt his breath catch in his throat.

“Oh, my God,” Stan groaned. “Can you two just make out already and save the rest of us from your weird foreplay?”

Eddie remembered how to breathe. Realized his hands were shaking.

“I would never cheat on Richie’s sister,” Eddie managed to say in a way that he hoped was normal.

“Yeah,” Richie said, voice weirdly tense, “and the only person I’d cheat on Eddie’s mom with his dad.”

Eddie lobbed a couch pillow at Richie, and Richie laughed, and the moment was gone.

  
  


\---

  
  


Eddie’s only saving grace was the fact that, for the most part, he and Richie were hardly ever alone together. And when they were, it was only because they were waiting the five minutes it took for another one or two of the Loser’s to join them.

But even those small, insignificant periods of time where they were alone together, face to face, made Eddie want to, like, tear his hair out, or something. Because it was always so  _ easy  _ and  _ natural  _ but it was also always so  _ tense  _ and  _ man did he want Richie to fuck his brains out again.  _

It wasn’t even that he was horny all the time. It was probably more about how it was easier to funnel the fact that Eddie really honestly thought just holding Richie’s hand would be really cool and nice, actually, into strictly sex thoughts. It was easier that way.

It was easier to think that he was only sexually attracted to Richie. That Richie making him laugh so hard he felt his green smoothie start to make the journey up his nose rather than down his throat didn’t really matter.

“You almost fucking killed me,” Eddie said, coughing and trying to sniff his green smoothie back down his throat. “I could’ve fucking died.”

“Eddie Spaghetti Kaspbrak,” Richie said seriously, tracing the air as if reading from an epitaph written on a gravestone, “killed by hipster smoothies and khaki sales at Old Navy’s.”

“Remind me not to put you in charge of my funeral,” Eddie said, wiping the corners of his mouth and rolling his eyes.

“Well, you’d be dead, so there’s no way you could stop me,” Richie pointed out.

Eddie’s phone buzzed at the same time Richie’s emitted its obnoxious ringtone. “I would haunt you hard enough to kill you too,” Eddie said as they both reached for their phones.

“Aw, how romantic.”

Eddie had gotten a text from Ben saying that he and Bev actually weren’t going to join them to go see that shitty Adam Sandler movie (that Richie had been begging all the Losers to see with him but had been mostly refused to on account of the Losers having dignity and taste, except for Eddie because of his ongoing crisis, Ben because he was nice, and Bev because she liked watching dumpster fires) because Bev had realized that she’d completely forgotten about a huge project in her fashion design class that was due the next day. Ben was staying behind to give her moral support and to make sure she ate and, like, drank water and stuff. 

For a strange sort of moment, neither Richie or Eddie spoke. Eddie looked up from his phone. His palms were sweaty.

“Uh, did Bev text you?” he asked, and he realized that Richie’s face was cherry red. Richie coughed, pushing up his glasses and pushing a hand through his wild curls.

“Yeah,” he said, voice cracking, “looks like the old Benverly pair can’t make it.”

“Looks like it,” Eddie said. He drummed his fingers on his phone. Richie coughed again.

“Listen,” Richie said, face still red, “we don’t have to go to the movie if it’ll make you uncomfortable.”

Eddie blinked. Was extremely aware of his heart pounding. “Why would it make me uncomfortable?”

“Oh,” Richie said. He blinked. Smiled, a little shy. “You still want to go?”

“I mean.” He shouldn’t. “Yeah. I guess.”

“Oh,” Richie said again. Smiled, beautiful. “Cool.”

Richie drove them to the theater, and everything was fine. It was easy and fine, just like it always was. And Richie bought them both popcorn and drinks and refused to let Eddie pay him back, which was annoying, and they fought over putting extra butter on the popcorn (“It’s so fucking unhealthy.” “Yeah, but it tastes good.” “It’s already buttered, there’s no reason to put more on because it  _ already has enough.”  _ “There’s no such thing as enough butter. Call me Paula Dean because I want to be slathered in that shit.” “...You can put extra butter on there if you promise never to say the word ‘slathered’ ever again.”), and they watched the movie in a dark theater among a crowd of strangers, and Eddie was not at all hyper aware of Richie leaning on the armrest between them the entire time. And the movie was terrible, and Eddie hated it, but it made Richie laugh a lot, so Eddie supposed it was fine.

When the movie ended, Eddie let himself be tugged along to Richie’s apartment, and he didn’t even worry about Stan not being at the apartment (he was staying at Bill and Mike’s for a group project) because he was having fun. Richie was so bright and smiling, and he was having fun.

And everything was going all well and fine and platonic until Eddie somehow ended up in Richie’s lap with his tongue down Richie’s throat.

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

They’d just been -  _ fuck what had they been doing? -  _ watching some Netflix stand up special, and then Richie had made some sort of joke -  _ soft, gentle, lights off, face illuminated by the light of the TV, definitely flirting -  _ and Eddie had started to laugh it off until he realized he didn’t want to -  _ his mocking smile was still on his lips when he leaned in -  _ and then. 

Well.

And now Richie’s huge hands were cupping Eddie’s ass, grinding him down on his quickly hardening  _ fucking huge  _ dick through their jeans, and he moved his mouth off Eddie’s to press kisses and teeth alike down Eddie’s neck. Richie bit down on his skin, and Eddie let out a soft, embarrassing sort of noise.

Richie seemed to pull his mouth off Eddie’s neck with great difficulty, letting out a shaking breath and pressing his forehead to Eddie’s shoulder, breathing hard. His hands flexed on Eddie’s ass.

Eddie ran his hands through Richie’s dark curls, trying to remember how to breathe. He pushed his hands up through Richie’s hair, exposing the nape of his neck, and Eddie thought about what a beautiful neck Richie had. Without thinking, he leaned down and pressed his lips to the warm skin. And then he bit down on Richie’s neck, just to see.

Richie inhaled sharply, hands going up Eddie’s back - one hand pulling him flush to Richie’s chest, the other traveling to Eddie’s head and pulling him back by the hair. For a moment, they just stared at each other, and Eddie saw that Richie’s pupils were blown wide, lids heavy with lust. 

“Please let me take you to the bedroom,” Richie said, voice hoarse.

He should say no. But what could he do? Really? “Yeah, okay.”

And then Richie was standing up, hands back on Eddie’s ass to support him as he literally fucking  _ carried  _ Eddie to the bedroom. With, like, just his hands. Arms. Fuck.

“Did you do that just to flex on me?” Eddie asked when Richie tossed him onto the bed.

“Definitely,” Richie said, tugging his shirt off. And then Eddie followed suit, and from there it was just a matter of getting each other’s clothes off in the fastest way possible. Richie’s (huge, warm, nice, pretty) hand was wrapped around their bare, equally hard, dicks when Eddie remembered that  _ wait fuck there’s consequences to your actions. _

“Waitwaitwait,” he said, and Richie immediately stopped, taking his hand off Eddie’s dick. Eddie couldn’t help but groan at the loss of sensation, and when he managed to focus enough on what he wanted to say, he found Richie waiting patiently - hair askew, glasses a little foggy, dick so hard (and huge), and so patient. Eddie felt something in him that he really didn’t want to pay attention to break. He took a deep breath. “This can’t. We can’t. I mean. This shouldn’t mean anything.”

Something traveled across Richie’s face, too fast for Eddie to identify. And then he was nodding, slowly at first, and then more surely. “But you’re alright with doing this? You want to keep going?”

He shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t. “Yes.” Fuck, he hoped he didn’t sound desparate. 

Richie nodded again. For the first time, Eddie thought he was hard to read. He leaned over Eddie, still not touching him, tantalizingly close. “You saw the word,” he said, slow and careful, staring straight into Eddie’s eyes, “and I will stop. You feel even a little uncomfortable, and you tell me immediately, and we’ll stop. Tell me you understand.”

His eyes were so dark. Eddie swallowed. “I understand.”

“Good,” Richie said, searching his eyes for a moment before sitting up on his heels. “Get on your hands and knees.”

It was frankly embarrassing how fast Eddie scrambled to his hands and knees, but he decided that was fine because then Richie was getting the lube out and Eddie remembered that he was going to get fucked to hell and back, so who even cared about dignity anymore. 

Richie wasted no time in pushing a finger inside Eddie - lube still cold, finger somehow thicker and longer than he remembered - and then two fingers, and then three, and then Eddie was sweating, face pressed into the rumpled sheets on the bed, letting out little whining noises that filled up the otherwise quiet room. Richie spread his fingers inside of him and then added a fourth, and Eddie cried out like he was going to die, which, in all fairness, he really might.

For a moment, Richie didn’t move his fingers, letting Eddie - panting, tears in his eyes - get used to the feeling. And then his thumb was stroking along Eddie’s perineum, almost soothing if it hadn’t set Eddie’s teeth on edge with agonizing pleasure, and then his thumb was moving closer to his hole, stroking along his rim, and Eddie sobbed. Straight up sobbed. Richie stuffed his thumb inside of him.

And  _ oh oh oh oh  _ it was so  _ much,  _ so much, Richie’s whole hand (big, warm,  _ big)  _ was inside of him, and he was pushing in, pushing in, and there was more  _ more,  _ and then Eddie’s hole was closing around Richie’s wrist. His  _ fucking wrist. _

Eddie pressed his face into the sheets, screaming straight into the mattress to try to muffle the sound, but then Richie was pulling his fist -  _ his fist -  _ out of Eddie so fast that the scream of pleasure became a scream of loss and fucking, like, mourning, or something, until Richie splayed the hand that had just been inside of him on the small of Eddie’s back. Big, warm. Wet.

“I want to hear you,” Richie said, perfectly calm, and Eddie turned his face to the side so that he could breathe. He saw Richie, behind him, one hand on Eddie’s back, the other stroking his dick in lazy flicks of his wrist. Eddie’s own dick jerked, and Eddie squeezed his eyes shut, tears leaking out from between his eyelashes. “I want to hear you,” Richie repeated, and then he was plunging his whole fist into Eddie’s hole again, up to his wrist and a little farther, and Eddie screamed into the open air. “Good,” Richie said, and Eddie sobbed.

Fuck.

Fuck.

“I could do this to you all night,” Richie said, quiet and clear in comparison to the unintelligible sounds falling from Eddie’s throat. “Just here, making you feel good with my fist. Wouldn’t even have to use my dick.”

_ “No no no no no,” _ Eddie babbled, and Richie pulled his fist out of his ass, not even touching him, leaving him empty and wanting, wanting, wanting. And Eddie cried because he was losing his mind and he’d forgotten, he’d forgotten that Richie was nice and true to his word, but he was feeling good and he didn’t want to stop -  _ no, no, no he didn’t want to stop no -  _ and he struggled to figure out how to form sentences to inform Richie of this. “No,” he said again because  _ what the fuck  _ his mind was blank except for abstracts, except for Richie’s fist, except for Richie’s dick.

“Okay,” Richie whispered, and he leaned down and pressed a kiss between Eddie’s shoulder blades. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

“I want,” Eddie finally managed to say, and Richie paused in getting off the bed. Eddie buried his face in the sheets, huffed out a breath. The longer Richie wasn’t touching him the more his capacity for speech seemed to return. Imagine that. “I don’t want to stop.”

He felt Richie settle down behind him again. “Okay,” he said slowly. “Then what do you want?”

Eddie’s cheeks burned. He remembered the first time, how Richie had wanted him to beg. How Eddie had wanted to beg, but that he didn’t. But he wanted to. He wanted to.

“Your dick,” he finally said, and Richie sucked in a breath. Eddie licked his lips. “I want you to fuck me, Richie. Please.”

And then Richie was grabbing his hair - with the hand that was covered in lube, which was, like, vaguely gross - and pulling him back until his back arched and his head was right next to Richie’s. “Say that again,” Richie said, voice low.

Eddie swallowed. “Please fuck me, Rich.” Richie’s eyes were so dark. His dick was pressed against the cleft of his ass. “Please.”

And Richie did. Fucked him like that, Eddie’s back pressed to his chest, one hand tangled in his hair, the other on his throat. Fucked him on his hands and knees, biting along Eddie’s neck and shoulders, hands grabbing Eddie’s shoulders as leverage to push him back onto his dick, over and over and over. Fucked him with Eddie riding on top, in the loosest sense of the word because Eddie’s knees were so weak and Richie was gripping his hips and fucking himself into Eddie’s hole, eyes traveling between Eddie’s face, Eddie’s bouncing dick, and the place Richie’s dick disappeared inside of him. Fucked him until Eddie came, completely untouched, screaming, whining, crying, and he fucked him even after that, not even stopping when Eddie got overstimulated. Fucked him until Eddie got hard again.

Eddie was dying, dead, pulled back to life by the relentless movement of Richie’s dick, thick and hard and warm in him, in his stomach, against his rim. Dead, dying, screaming.

Eddie was lying on his back, delirious, when Richie came in him. It was hot, overwhelming, good  _ good good.  _

Richie fucked himself through it, groaning deep in the back of his throat, and then when he was milked dry by Eddie’s pulsing hole, he pulled out. Eddie whimpered, missing the feeling, glad it was over, wanting it back, wanting to cum, wanting to pass out.

And then Richie was biting a trail down Eddie’s body, avoiding his dick like he had all night, and then lifting Eddie’s legs onto his shoulders.

And he looked Eddie in the eye as he pressed his lips to Eddie’s swollen, sensitive hole, and  _ sucked.  _

Eddie came hard enough to see stars, screaming loud enough for God and everyone else to turn their ears away from in blushing ecstasy, and still Richie didn’t stop. He didn’t stop until every last drop of cum was licked and sucked out of Eddie’s hole.

And then he licked his way back up Eddie’s body, cleaning up Eddie’s sensitive dick with his mouth, kissing up the cum from his chest and neck, and then he was leaning over Eddie, mouth pressed firmly closed. He cupped Eddie’s jaw with a gentle hand and coaxed Eddie’s mouth further open with his thumb.

And then he let all the cum in his mouth - from him and Eddie alike - drip off his tongue and fall into Eddie's relaxed, willing, waiting, yearning mouth. It was disgusting. It was maybe the hottest thing that had ever happened to him.

When most of the cum was in Eddie’s mouth, Richie coaxed Eddie’s mouth closed. “Swallow,” he said, voice rough. Eddie swallowed.

He thought Richie was going to kiss him. He wanted Richie to kiss him.

But Richie just wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and climbed off Eddie. He gave Eddie a wet towel and a glass of water, just like last time, and he went out to smoke on the balcony. He didn’t say a word.

And Eddie got dressed, just like last time. He felt a lot more hollow than he remembered feeling last time. He drank his water, went out to meet Richie on the balcony, just like last time. 

The air was sharp, too cold. Richie’s glasses were clean.

Richie gave him a ride home. Silent. Dropped him off at Eddie’s building. 

Before Eddie got out of the car, they looked at each other. Eddie thought about saying something. Richie’s jaw worked. 

Neither of them said anything.

And Eddie left. He got of the car, and he walked up to his building, and he didn’t look back, and he walked up the stairs even though it was torture, and he unlocked his door, and he took a shower, and he dried off his hair, and he went over to the window that looked out into the parking lot, and it was just a parking lot, and he realized he was crying.

Fuck.

  
  


\---

  
  


Two weeks passed in a blur. Eddie didn’t talk to Richie, and Richie didn’t talk to Eddie. And Eddie tried not to think about it because Richie would still laugh when they saw each other hanging out with the Losers, and sometimes he would catch Eddie’s eye, and sometimes the smile would last for longer than a second after he looked at him, and sometimes Eddie would take out his phone and stare at Richie’s absurd contact name that he’d never changed, but most of the time he did homework and Richie didn’t look at him and he tried not to think and Richie wouldn’t smile at him.

Eddie came home from his third late night at the library in a row to see Bev laying on his bed, head hanging off the edge, while Ben looked vaguely uncomfortable on his own bed, hands clasped in his lap. Eddie stopped by his desk, setting his stuff down and looking between them.

“I can, uh, leave if you guys need me to.” He could practically taste the argument in the air.

“Absolutely not,” Bev said, and she sat up straight, smoothing down her fiery hair and patting the bed beside her. “Get over here, sweetcheeks.”

Eddie sat down beside her. He looked at Ben. Ben smiled an apologetic sort of smile. “What’s this about?” he asked even though he kind of already knew.

Bev gave him that look that she had - the one where she was gently hoping he would be less stupid. “Tell us what happened.”

And there was something about the way she said it - in the way she and Ben were looking at him - that made him actually tell them. Everything, from the beginning. And they listened, without interrupting, and when Eddie finished, Bev flopped back on his bed and covered her face with her hands.

“I know,” Eddie said.

“Eddie,” Bev said.

“I know,” Eddie said again.

“Do you?” she asked, and Eddie shrugged.

“Okay,” Ben said slowly, rubbing his hands on his pants and staring hard down at the ground. “I guess… Well, I guess the first thing to do is figure out what you want.”

“I want…”  _ To be with Richie.  _ “To be his friend again.”

Bev made a sound in the back of her throat. “Just his friend?”

Eddie flushed. “Well. I don’t. I’m just. I can’t.”

“Why?” Ben asked.

Eddie shrugged. “It’s just.” Made a few noncommittal noises in his throat.

“Do you not want to date him?” Bev asked.

“No, I do,” Eddie said, the words leaving his mouth without him even thinking about it. Ben and Bev stared at him. “I just. Can’t.”

“Why not?” Bev asked, and Eddie let out a sigh of frustration, standing up and pacing in the small room, running a hand through his hair.

“I’m just. Not.” He paced back and forth, faster. “Richie is just so. He’s so. And I’m just. He’s so-”

“You think you’re not good enough for him,” Bev said, and Eddie stopped. Sagged. “That’s so fucking stupid.”

“Bev,” Ben said, tone soothing, and she threw her hands up.

“What? Am I wrong?” Ben pursed his lips. “Listen to me, Eddie, and you better listen real good. You’re smoking hot, and you’re funny and smart as hell. And Richie knows that, and you’re stupid to think that he doesn’t eat all that right up.”

“But I’m so…” He trailed off, gesturing down to all of him. “Anxious. Mean.”

“I’m pretty sure Richie has had more fun bickering with you about all your anxieties and pretend mean quips than he has ever had in his entire life,” Bev said. “Trust me. That’s maybe his favorite part about you.”

Eddie looked over at Ben. Ben nodded. Eddie sighed.

“I’m going to have to talk to him, aren’t I?”

Bev stood up and pulled Ben up, too. “We’ll drive you there.”

  
  


\---

  
  


When they pulled up outside Richie’s apartment building, Bev sent called Stan to tell him they were going on a surprise trip to the aquarium to get him out of the apartment, and when he came to the car and saw Eddie in the back seat, he climbed in and leaned his head against the headrest, looked up at the ceiling of the car in a sort of reverence and said, “if this is what I think it is, thank  _ fuck.” _

“You’ll do great,” Ben said, and Bev and Stan both gave him enthusiastic thumbs up. And then Eddie was walking up to Richie’s apartment, legs stiff. This was fine, He was fine.

He raised his hand. Knocked on the door.

“Did you suddenly gain manners, Sta- oh.” Richie stopped, frozen in mid motion from when he’d begun to pull the door open. He stared at Eddie. Eddie stared at him.

He was wearing a shirt with a crocodile in a tuxedo on it that said “lookin’ sharp” and a pair of sweatpants. He was the most beautiful person Eddie had ever seen.

“Hi,” Eddie managed to say.

“Hi,” Richie replied. They stared at each other some more. Eddie shivered. “Oh. Do you want to. Uh. Come in?”

“Yes, it’s fucking cold,” Eddie said without really thinking, and then he winced. He was supposed to be apologizing. Richie stepped aside, perplexed. “Sorry,” Eddie said as he walked in.

Richie closed the door behind him. They stood in the entryway. “It’s cool.” Pause. “Stan’s gone.”

Eddie blinked at him. “I know.”

Richie blinked back at him. “You weren’t looking for him?”

“Why the fuck would I be looking for Stan?”

“I don’t know,” Richie said, shrugging helplessly, “he can be pretty cool.”

“Yeah, well I haven’t fucked Stan twice and screwed him over more times than that, so I’m obviously not here to talk to Stan.” They stared at each other. Richie swallowed.

“What?” he asked weakly.

Eddie threw his hands up, patience wearing thin. “I’m here to fucking talk to  _ you  _ and apologize to  _ you.  _ Are you fucking stupid?”

Richie sat down on the couch as if he’d suddenly lost feeling in his knees. He looked up at Eddie, jaw working. “Only on Thursdays,” he said.

Eddie stared at him. “It’s fucking Sunday.”

“Yeah, I know,” Richie said, and Eddie pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Okay,” he said, beginning to pace. “Okay. Calm down.” He was talking to himself. Richie’s eyes followed as he paced. “Okay. Richie.” He stopped, turned to face Richie, realized that it was kind of a lot to look at Richie and have Richie’s blue eyes, sad and hoping and deep, staring back at him, so he cleared his throat and kept pacing. “Richie. I don’t know what to say. Fuck. Basically when I first met you, all I was expecting was to get kissed for the first time in my life, but instead you were fucking great at sex and talking and everything, but I wasn’t expecting to get into anything at the time - I just wanted something to knock off the firsts, you know? And then you came up to me at Starbucks, and I realized  _ fuck  _ if I became your friend, I would probably fall in- I would probably like you a lot, and I didn’t know if I wanted that, so I was afraid, but you were still so easy to talk to, so I just became your friend, and then we had the same friends, and it was fine, it was fine except for the fact that I was getting feelings for you. And-and I’m not good, I’m terrible, really, I’m neurotic and rude, and I don’t want you to have to deal with me, so when we- when we were alone, and you wanted me, I didn’t want you to expect anything more from me because I’m- I’m  _ why are you grinning you bastard I’m pouring my heart out to you.” _

Richie ducked his head, grinned a little more, a little shy, a lot beautiful. “Aw, Eds, you have a crush on me?”

Eddie stared at him, exasperated.  _ “That  _ is what you got out of everything that I just said?”

“Yup,” Richie said, popping the ‘p’ sound, and then he seemed to think for a moment, actually processing what Eddie had said. And then he froze, eyes snapping back to Eddie. “I was your first?” 

“That is literally not the point,” Eddie said, but then Richie was standing up, running his hands through his hair and beginning to pace back and forth.

“I was your first  _ kiss,  _ your first  _ time,  _ your first? I was your  _ first?”  _ He stopped in front of Eddie, and Eddie saw the absolute devastation in his bright eyes. “Eddie, why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”

Eddie shook his head, bewildered. “It’s not that important.”

_ “It’s not that important?”  _ Richie parrated, shrill. “Eddie, if I had known, I would’ve- I would’ve been gentler, kinder, I would’ve looked after you more, I would’ve-”

Eddie grabbed his face with his hands, pulling Richie down so that his face was level with Eddies, eyes still wide. “You were perfect,” Eddie said. “You  _ were  _ gentle, and you  _ were  _ kind, and you  _ did  _ look after me, and I” - he faltered, felt emotion rise in his chest - “I really liked it all, Rich. I really like  _ you.” _

Richie took hold of Eddie’s wrists, gently easing his hands down from his face so he could speak. But it was funny. He seemed at a loss for words.

He kissed the palms of Eddie’s hands.

They kissed then, on the lips, and it felt like a first kiss. It was soft, and it was sweet, and it was gentle, and it was kind. And Eddie savored it very much. And then he bit Richie’s bottom lip, and Richie groaned, and they went to the bedroom, and they took it slow, and they took it fast, and Richie used his big warm rough hands to slap and choke him just as much as he used them to hold him, and Eddie cried but so did Richie, and they kissed each other’s bite marks, and they both came with each other’s name on their lips.

And then Richie was toweling Eddie down himself, and he was sitting with Eddie as he drank his water, and Eddie joined him on the balcony to watch him smoke, and then they laid down on the bed, and Richie made sure the blankets were covering Eddie, and they tangled their fingers together.

“I was going to ask you to hang out again that first night,” Richie told him, looking down at their fingers. “But you said you wanted to go home, so I let it go. And I was too nervous to message you again. I didn’t want you to say no.”

“I wondered,” Eddie admitted. “I thought I was just imagining things.”

Richie shook his head. “You were everything I wanted in a continuous lay. Mean, honest, a bit of a brat, wearing khakis.” He said it so sweetly. Eddie squeezed Richie’s fingers hard enough to hurt.

“Shut the fuck up, jackass.” No bite.

“Such a way with words,” Richie sighed dreamily. “When I saw you again, I knew I couldn’t let you go. I needed to know where you got your socks.”

“Fuck off.” 

“You broke my heart a bit when you told me not to tell anyone we had sex,” Richie said, soft. Eddie searched him.

“I didn’t mean to.”

“I know.” A beat. Richie kissed his fingers. “And you broke it again when you told me it couldn’t mean anything.”

Eddie closed his eyes.

“Ben texted you that day that Bev had a project. Bev texted me that day to make my move. I thought you’d gotten the same message from Ben.” Eddie opened his eyes, and Richie kissed his fingers again. 

He thought about that day again, ran it through. Thought about Richie’s cherry red cheeks after he’d read Bev’s text, thought about how he’d paid for the popcorn, thought about the nervous laughter and the leaning over on the armrest between them.

“Oh, Rich,” Eddie whispered. “I didn’t…”

“I know,” Richie said, and he kissed his fingers again. “It’s alright.”

“No,” Eddie said, shaking his head and shifting so that he was on top of Richie, straddling him. “It’s not alright. Have higher standards for yourself. Be upset with me.”

Their hands were still tangled together. Richie stared at him, smiled a little. 

And then he disentangled their fingers just to grab hold of Eddie’s hips, squeezing hard. “Are you asking for punishment?” he asked with a grin, and Eddie snorted out a laugh despite himself.

_ “Shut up  _ I’m trying to be serious,” he said, but Richie had taken hold of Eddie’s hands again and was blowing raspberries on his palms.  _ “Richie,”  _ Eddie whined.

_ “Eddie,”  _ Richie mimicked, laughing. “It’s alright, Eds. I was already upset with you, but I didn’t like that very much, and now I’m over it.”

Eddie twisted his lips to the side.

Richie looked up at him, letting out a small huff of amusement. “You don’t even know, do you, Eds? You don’t even know how much I like you.”

Eddie’s heart and stomach and bones and everything about him leaped up and thumped happily. He rested his hands against Richie’s chest, flexing his fingers. He bit the inside of his cheek. “Show me?” he asked, and Richie’s face lit up.

_ “Ooh,  _ a  _ confident  _ Eddie Spaghetti. Exactly what I like to see in a boyfriend.”

Eddie froze. Richie waited for him.

“God,” Eddie said, leaning down and pressing a chaste kiss to Richie’s lips. “I can’t believe my boyfriend is so fucking insufferable.”

And Richie grinned, bright as the fucking sun and thirty times as pretty, and he hugged Eddie close, squeezing him tight against his chest. And Eddie kissed Richie’s jaw rather sweetly, and then he nosed down and bit at Richie’s neck, and Richie laughed and pulled at Eddie’s hair, grinding his hips up into Eddie’s ass, and, well.

That was that.

**Author's Note:**

> can you believe i set out to write this fic thinking it would be like less than 5000 words. fuck me amiright lads
> 
> anyway this is so self-indulgent. like actually embarrassing how self-indulgent this is. also this is my first reddie/IT/explicit fic. im sorry if it sucks but if it didn't that's cool as hell. also it's 4:53 in the morning if you expect me to edit this right now you are sorely mistaken. im so sorry i'll check it over whenever i have slept
> 
> i have a tumblr that i like to post on @pinkcerulean please follow me i'd love to have friends and yeah. thanks for reading. im so sorry


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